Creating chapter buttons in encore seems to be extremely difficult!

[Bill Stephan]

Bruce,

Since Encore uses a method of constructing menus very different than that used in all other authoring software, start with one of Encore’s included sample chapter menus. Open it in Photoshop. Then you will get a sense of what the different layers do and how to set up the highlights for the buttons. Once you see how the various layers add to the final menu, I think the instructions in the help file will make much more sense.

You may find it much easier to swap your own artwork into one of the sample menus rather than constructing a new menu file from scratch, at least for the first few times.

Once the menu artwork is done, you select the target for each button (the chapter points) with the pick whip.

Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City

[Bruce Klein]

Bill, thank you for your reply. I have opened a pre built layout in Encore and i can see somewhat how it may work.

My problem is I do not understand how to enter the right settings to make it work properly…

I have 12 chapters and the markers are on the timeline… I do not need picons, thumbnails, photo buttons… I just need to give each button a title…

I spend some additional hours but I feel that all I will accomplish is wasting more time…

I know I am not stupid but this program is making me feel that way.

Perhaps I need a walk through or a set of directions that actually work.

Thanks again,

ABK

I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5 on a IMAC 27, Intel core i5 2.7 GHz, 12 GB 1333 MHz DDR3… MAC OSX 10.6.8 I have a 2 2 Terabyte external drives also.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Bruce

[Bill Stephan]

Very brief walkthrough:

To make a very simple menu, black background with 2 chapter buttons, in Photoshop make a 720×480 pixel 72dpi document. Fill the bottom layer with black. Next, the layers for each button live inside a group (one group for each button). Make a group & call it button 1. Make a layer inside that group and type the text “Chapter One”. Make a new layer above the last and create your selection highlight — a yellow line under the words “Chapter One”. Make another new layer above and create your activation highlight — a red line this time. Now you need to make sure the layers in the group are named as they are in the sample menus. The punctuation (+ etc.) is how Encore knows what each layer belongs to. Now make a new layer group and complete the same steps to make the second button.

Be careful that you name all the layers and groups as Encore requires. See help file or sample menus. I’m not near an Encore machine right now, so I’d rather not try to explain from memory.

Hope this helps.

Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City

[Bruce Klein]

Thanks for your reply. I’ll give it a try but I am not that familiar with Photoshop yet.

I was trying to work a pre built button set up in Encore…

ABK

I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5 on a IMAC 27, Intel core i5 2.7 GHz, 12 GB 1333 MHz DDR3… MAC OSX 10.6.8 I have a 2 2 Terabyte external drives also.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Bruce